Audi R15 wins debut at 12 Hours of Sebring

The R8, the R10 and now the R15. Each of Audi's last three prototype Le Mans race cars have won their race debut, with the latest R15 recording its first victory yesterday at the 57th 12 Hours of Sebring. The winning #2 R15 was driving by Audi's dream team of Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen. Of course, Audi's win did not come easy in the top tier Le Mans P1 class. Peugeot was right there the whole time with its pair of diesel-powered 908 HDi cars, swapping the lead with Audi a total of 23 times. In fact, both teams remained on the same lap with each other throughout the entire 12-hour race.

Follow the jump to continue reading Autoblog's run down of the 57th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring.

It was the last hour, however, that cemented Audi's victory. With 42 minutes remaining, the leading Peugeot driven by Franck Montagny pitted for fuel and gave up the lead to Alan McNish. The flying Scot then proceeded to click off exceedingly faster laps, building up enough of a lead over Montagny and the Peugeot to pit for fuel with 14 minutes remaining. Luck was on Audi's side, however, as a yellow flag would've given Montagny the lead for good after McNish's final pit. When McNish did emerge from pit row for the last time, Montagny was just emerging on the backstretch. The Audi ended up crossing the finish line 22.279 seconds ahead of the Peugeot. Third place in LMP1 went to the #1 Audi R15, while both of the Acura ARX-02b cars failed to make the podium despite one starting the race in pole position.

The next fastest LMP2 class was won by the Acura ARX-01b car of Lowe's Fernandez Racing driven by Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz. The GT1 class was not surprisingly won by Jan Magnussen and Johnny O'Connel in the Corvette Racing C6.R. This is the last Sebring for the C6.R before the Corvette switches to the GT2 class later this year. The GT2 class at this year's Sebring was won by the Risi Competizione Ferrar F430 GT driven by Pierre Kaffer and Jaime Melo in a decidedly less exciting fashion than two years ago.

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Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Where are all the fanboys that were proclaiming Acura were going to kick Audi and Peugeot in the balls because "wooo!! Acura got pole position!! They are going to teach Audi and Peugeot" blah blah blah.

Whatever. Those people obviously know and knew nothing about endurance races.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

It's a shame about the big crash in GT2 entering the front straight. That was some seriously poor-quality driving, but it's sad because now in this time of financial difficulty, both teams now have to spend even more just to recover from some lunkhead driving.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

if you're talking about the Porsche RSR and the Panoz Esperante,I think that SPEED channel did a good job of showing that the track narrows at that section and the Panoz was forced to the left a bit..... the contactwas unfortunate but they made the case that it was legit racing.

....don't feel bad for race teams and their budgets,they can afford to race, believe me.

I love the Flying Lizard Team, and was hoping to seethem get on Risi Ferrari, but the contact with the Panozand the Ford GT..... it's racing. It was great to see them come backfrom their set backs and fight for a podium spot in the night.

Anonymous

I am referring to the incident you are talking about. And it was only legit racing if you think the Porsche running the Panoz into a wall is legit.

The driver of the Flying Lizard Porsche was a knucklehead and should have moved over to make room for the Panoz.

I don't know what you mean that the Panoz was forced left, the track was narrowing, the cars were forced right. The Panoz moved over because he had to, the Porsche should have already moved over before the track narrowed.

I do feel bad for the teams. Expenses like this do no one any good. You will note the low car count this year. This is an indication of the financial distress in racing right now.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Great job by Audi. The unscheduled pit for the deflating tire along with not having Bourdais in for the final stint really hurt Peugeot. I absolutely can't wait for LeMans, it should be an all out fight.

McNish is just unbelievable. The pass using the Porsche was just incredible. I'm glad I can say that I have seen him drive at last year's Petite LeMans.

I was disappointed that the BMW's couldn't make it in GT2.

With Audi not running the ALMS schedule this year, who else is left in P1 for Acura to compete against?

Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

On that topic ( Sebastien Bourdais ), I hope Peugeot figure out a way to get him in the car at crunch time. He was the quickest driver out there. Audi seem to never lose a race due to strategic errors excepting the year the Penske Porsche P2 cars cleaned their clock.